244 WRITING AND CONSERVATISM 



violence with which people expressed themselves was 

 amusing. The Cuckow is one of the Englishman's 

 divinities, and anybody who strives to dispel or explain 

 the mystery pertaining thereto is supposed to be guilty 

 of profanity. It was this that chiefly made me abstain 

 from writing an article on " Cuckow's Dupes " which I 

 had long been perpending. 



Dear old Hewitson would go at me with still greater 

 fury than he has exhibited towards you. "Doubt my 

 Cuckow, doubt me." So that in spite of your solicita- 

 tions (and there are not many of my friends to whom 

 I would sooner listen) I must preserve my peace of 

 mind.* 



His habitual caution prevented him from uttering 

 theories about such questions as Classification or Geo- 

 graphical Distribution, and to matters of philosophical 

 speculation it may be said that he was almost in- 

 different. 



I do not think Huxley can be charged with coining 

 the word " Positivism." I have heard it these 20 

 years nearly, though I confess I have never attached 

 any very definite meaning to the word, or cared to 

 know anything about M. Comte, the founder of the 

 system. I have heard Huxley call it a kind of super- 

 stitious infidelity which had all the advantages of 

 Popery without anything to counterbalance them, but 

 I am not curious in these matters and, believing that 

 everything in this world is comparative from Anatomy 

 downwards, I have not troubled myself to inquire into 

 the merits of a Positive Philosophy, f 



In politics, as one might expect, Newton was 

 staunchly Tory, the old order was the best and changes 

 should be opposed ; but it cannot be said that he was 



* Letter to Rev. A. C. Smith, April 22, 1873. 

 t Letter to Mrs. Strickland, June 26, 1869 



